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The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight: then we shall clearly realise that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency.
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The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight: then we shall clearly realise that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency. Walter Benjamin (1970: 259)
Student protests as conservative and anti-progressive • British General Strike of 1926: students prominent volunteers to scab on the strike by keeping the transport system running • Nazi Germany 1930s: little opposition to Nazis from student organisation Deutsche Studentenschaft. (see John Rees ‘The Idea of the University’ in The Assault on Universities, 2001)
1660s US Civil Rights Movement • Freedom bus Rides testing law against segregation. • Students as Freedom Riders, took bus into the south, organising Freedom Schools to compensate for racist education system • 1964: Freedom Summer: Berkeley campus in San Francisco: occupation of college, strikes by students
The expansion of the universities in the 1950s and 1960s created mass higher education for the first time. This is itself created a crisis, even though a large majority of students were still from relatively affluent backgrounds. The further expansion since then has not only quadrupled the numbers of students: it has also, for the first time, brought large numbers of students from working-class backgrounds onto the campuses. The volatility and explosive potential of modern universities was dramatically revealed by the student revolt of November-December 2010. (Faulkner 2011: 35).
Joseph Beuys (1973) Free International University
Stephen Ball (1990) The first of the Black Papers (Cox and Dyson 1969) on education was primarily concerned with Higher Education and the political involvement of students in the events of 1968. For many of the writers in the collection the causes of such student unrest were seen to lie in the lack of respect for and challenge to traditional authority (both the authority of texts and of institutions) …
1968 Student Revolution • Students part of wider picture of protest and struggle (war in Vietnam; democracy movement in Czecholslovakia) • Berlin: 10,000 students sit-in over Vietnam. • Rome: University closed for 12 days by anti-war protest. • London: Grovenor Square demonstrations 86 injured, 200 arrests.
Paris 1968 • French universities growing and overcrowded with authoritarian regimes • May 68 protest escalated by Ministry of Education closing University of Paris and sending riot police in to clear Sorbonne. • Battle students and police led to student protests becoming a national crisis. Paris Trade Union leaders joined in. General strike called for Monday 13 May. • 13 May marked transition from student uprising to a working class revolt: factory workers in occupations and strikes.
1968: Daniel Cohn-Bendit ‘Danny the Red’ “We work, but we produce nothing” http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/11/newsid_3003000/3003831.stm http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1968-the-year-of-revolt
'In December 1968 someone painted an entire Winnie-the-Pooh story on the paved path between Rootes Hall and the library (it was, incidentally, written in such a way that it read it one had to walk backwards). Soon afterwards workmen appeared to overturn the offending paving stones. Protest meetings were held, petitions were circulated, a rash of slogans appeared around the University designed to proclaim the right to daub on university buildings - some solely about Pooh, and some attempting to widen the political content. One such included a reference to the May 1968 troubles in France, declaring in red paint 'Le Chienlit, c'est JB'. Work on overturning the paving stones was halted, and half an A.A. Milne’s story written backwards was left to face the elements. Not a trace remains today, but the effects on students was of a more permanent nature'. E. P. Thompson (1970: 43)
'The struggle at Warwick had begun over this issue of the social building; after the discovery of the files attention was focused on the propriety of keeping political information; in the weeks following the issues changed. the students began to realise that these were not the real issues at all, but were merely symptoms. What was wrong was the whole concept and structure of the University. The ideals of academic excellence and the pursuit of knowledge had to be reasserted over the aims of the 'Business University' Thompson, 1970: 59
Demonstration in London against the National Front organised by the London and Home Counties Area Council of Liberation, 15 June 1974. A Warwick student, Kevin Gately, sustained injuries of which he later died
Student demo during Sir Keith Joseph’s (then Education Minister) visit to Warwick University campus in 1983. ‘RED WARWICK’
'Fight privatisation of our education', [1987]Watford student leaflet protesting against the reduction in student grants and the proposed introduction of student loans.[Included in the archive of the Socialist Party (formerly Militant Tendency; document reference: 601/H/4/8/2]
Contemporary Student struggles • Student movement pre-figured by anti-globalisation movement and anti-war movement. • 2003 first modern mass action by school students as part of Stop the War Coalition’s campaign against Iraq war. • School Students Against the War • ‘the generation of students that confronted the new ConDem government in 2010 contained some considerable numbers who had direct experience of protest and action of a highly politicised kind’ (Rees, 2011: 119)
2010 student struggle • 10 November 2010 demonstration: school students and university students, demo with support of NUS and UCU. • 30 November march and demo • 9 December student march: • Movement divide with NUS. • 9 December: Passing of the Bill
University Occupations • 46 across country by end of 2010? • Complicity university management and Government. • Technological self-organisation • Role of staff: divided, teach-ins and teach-outs. • Education debate brought into society. Rejection of neo-liberal education. • Imagining and creating ‘alternatives’.
The University of Utopia http://www.universityofutopia.org/
The Social Science Centre, Lincoln One of the unique features of the Centre is that it is run as a ‘not-for-profit’ co-operative. The Centre is managed on democratic, non-hierarchical principles with all students and staff having an equal involvement in how the Centre operates. The co-operative principles on which the management of the Centre is based extend to the ways in which courses are taught. All classes will be participative and collaborative, so as to include the experience and knowledge of the student as an intrinsic part of the course.
